Mount an Existing VMFS Datastore Using the vCenter Plugin

You can use the HPE vCenter Plugin to mount existing VMFS datastores on new ESXi hosts. There is no disruption of I/O on the datastores being mounted during this operation. The mount operation works the same way on both iSCSI and Fibre Channel arrays.
NOTE: You cannot mount a datastore that is located on a different datacenter. To mount a datastore to an ESXi host, it must be mounted on at least one other ESXi host in the current datacenter.
  1. Log on to the vSphere Web Client.
  2. From the Home screen, click Hosts and Clusters.
  3. Select either the datacenter, host cluster, or ESXi host under which you want to mount the datastore.

    The hosts on which you can mount the datastore are determined based on how the Datastore Wizard is launched in Step 4.

    • If you right-click on a datacenter to launch the wizard, the datastores you select will be mounted on all hosts in that datacenter.
    • If you right-click on a host cluster to launch the wizard, the datastores you select will be mounted on all ESXi hosts in that cluster.
    • If you right-click on a ESXi host to launch the wizard, the datastores you select will be mounted on only that ESXi host.
  4. Right-click on the datacenter, host cluster, or ESXi host and select HPE Alletra 6000 and HPE Nimble Storage Actions > Mount Nimble Datastore(s) to launch the datastore wizard.
    NOTE: You might need to use the scroll bar to see all the information in the wizard dialog.
  5. Select the Storage group on which you want to mount the datastore and click Next.
    You can select only one group at a time. The group must support mounting, or it cannot be selected.
    NOTE: You must have the group-specific privilege enabled to be able to view the datastores that belong to that group.
  6. Select one or more datastores to be mounted.
    The plugin only displays datastores that are visible to the vCenter in the list. It does not include offline volumes and datastores mounted in other datacenters.
  7. View the settings summary and click Save.

    After the wizard finishes, the following takes place:

    • Independent datastore tasks are created for each ESXi host.
    • Each task mounts the selected datastores on the hosts.
    • Each task creates an initiator group for each host and adds it to the volume. Existing initiator groups are not edited.
    • Mounting issues are reported on a per-host basis.
    NOTE: Because a task is created for each ESXi host involved, you cannot start another mount task on that host until the current task completes.